Many machines have reading mechanisms of the type intended to receive an operating card or other machine-operating substrate (e.g., paper currency) for actuating the operation of a machine, and/or for receiving a substrate including data to be scanned, such as a check. In many reading mechanisms internal surfaces are spaced apart a distance greater than the permissible thickness of the operating card or other operating substrate or a substrate to be scanned, to thereby keep the operating card and/or substrates out of contact with those internal surfaces, particularly internal surfaces of sensing mechanisms, e.g., surfaces of magnetic sensors, optical lenses and other surfaces defining the internal cavity of the reading mechanism. In many of these reading mechanisms, internal rails are provided to actually support the operating card or other substrate in a position out of contact with the sensing mechanisms.
Cleaning cards for us in attempting to clean the above-discussed reading mechanisms are well-known in the yard, and are generally employed to traverse the same path in the reading mechanism that is traversed by the operating card and/or other operating substrate or substrate to be scanned. The most common commercially available cleaning cards are substantially flat substrates that are intended to closely approximate the dimensions of the machine-operating substrate so that they can be received in the reading mechanism for the purposes of cleaning internal surfaces thereof. However, if the maximum thickness of a cleaning card that can be accepted in a reading device of a machine is less than the spacing of the internal surfaces to be cleaned, then the cleaning card will not effectively engage those surfaces to provide its desire cleaning function. This is particularly troublesome in reading devices wherein the machine-operating substrate and cleaning card are inserted through a slot into an enclosed-reading mechanism and actually are pulled into and retained within the enclosed mechanism during the operation and cleaning of the reading device, respectively. In these reading devices, the cleaning card cannot be manually pressed against either of the opposed internal surfaces within the slot, since the user of the card actually relinquishes control over its position when it is pulled into the enclosed mechanism.
Cleaning cards having raised surfaces for cleaning or removing foreign objects from internal machine surfaces are known in the prior art, as exemplified by the disclosures in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,243,908 (Battle, et al.), 6,107,221 (Nakajima, et al.) and 5,153,964 (Galardi, et al.). A discussion of these latter three patents is included in parent application Ser. No. 10/857,382, which has been fully incorporated by reference herein. Accordingly, that discussion is not repeated herein.
In addition to the above-identified prior art cleaning cards, parent application Ser. No. 10/857,382 discloses and claims an improved, very versatile solution to the problem of cleaning internal surfaces of machine-reading mechanisms, and in particular internal surfaces of sensing mechanisms that are spaced further apart from each other more than the maximum thickness of a substrate that can be received within the mechanism. Moreover, the cleaning cards disclosed and claimed in the '382 application can be employed in virtually all environments in which conventional, prior art cleaning cards have been employed in the past, even in reading devices wherein the prior art cleaning cards actually are capable of engaging internal surfaces of a sensing mechanism to provide effective cleaning of those surfaces.
However, applicants have recognized a potential problem in connection with attempting to clean reading mechanisms with the cleaning cards disclosed in the above-identified '382 pending application, when the path of the machine-operating substrate into the reading mechanism is not in a single, substantially linear plane. For example, in certain scanning devices, such as check scanning devices, a check is directed into an inlet opening and then is conveyed through a curved, substantially 180° bend to an outlet opening. As the check is being conveyed through the curved path, it is read, or scanned by a reading mechanism. Also, in some reading mechanisms for receiving and identifying paper currency to actuate or operate a machine, e.g., a product dispensing machine, the paper currency is directed into the reading mechanism in a first linear plane, and then the forward, or leading, end of the currency is caused to bend downwardly into a second plane to be fed into a collection bin.
It has been discovered that raised surfaces in cleaning cards of the type described and claimed in co-pending application Ser. No. 10/857,382 tend to flatten out and not engage internal surfaces requiring cleaning when the cleaning cards either are caused to move through a curved, non-linear path, and/or when the forward, or leading, end of a cleaning card bends downwardly to follow the same general path as the paper currency employed to operate a machine, as described above. In both of these latter systems, the movement of a cleaning card out of a single, substantially linear plane tends to apply machine-direction tension to the card, resulting in a flattening of the raised cleaning surfaces in locations where they are required to be elevated to clean internal surfaces of the reading mechanism.
Applicants also have determined that improvements are desired for cleaning internal feed rolls generally located at least at the entrance of reading mechanisms that receive a machine operating substrate or other substrate to be read or scanned.
The present invention includes improvements to prevent raised surfaces of cleaning cards from flattening to an unacceptable level in which they do not function to adequately clean desired internal surfaces, when a cleaning card, or a portion thereof, moves through more than one linear plane. Moreover, in accordance with another aspect of the invention, the cleaning cards include further features for enhancing the cleaning of feed rolls in machine reading mechanisms.